YouTube cofounder breaks 8-year absence on site to gripe about comment policy

Jawed Karim comments on YouTube's first video with a WTF.

Jawed Karim hasn't had much to say on YouTube for some time. In fact, the cofounder of the video site hasn't posted anything since he uploaded the first video on YouTube in 2005. But this week Karim took time out of his busy schedule at the tech incubator Y Ventures to leave a comment on his own video—and to slam Google's move to link YouTube's accounts to the Google+ social networking service:

Where as he is correct in his sentiment, the issue is that he doesn't own YouTube anymore...Google does. Any application owner is within their own rights (regardless of good or bad judgement) as to how to require people register to participate in leaving comments. There's no requirement that he have to leave a comment.

Is Google making a bad decisions here? Possibly, but that's not the question.

I sold my house, and drove by a year later and the new owners weren't maintaining the garden I put a lot of effort into. Did I throw a hissy fit? Nope, I sold that house so I lost ownership of it. Grow up, Jawed.

The prompts to get you to switch over to your real name have been incredibly passive aggressive too.

"Would you like to use your real name" *click no*"Ok... We'll ask you again later"

No seriously, it straight up says that. Like "Yeah, we realize you don't want this, but screw that we're going to pop this up as often as we want. It was only an illusion of choice anyway, its our way or the highway."

I never really understood the outrage on this one. They have lots of connected services so they're trying to consolidate everything under their login system. You can still start up a Youtube channel under a different email if you want to have one separate from your normal gmail account (as I have). It's like Apple using AppleID for iTunes and iOS devices and the Apple app store or Microsoft and a Microsoft account with Xbox, etc. Not really sure why it's a problem to use your Google account profile (G+) to log into Google services.

Where as he is correct in his sentiment, the issue is that he doesn't own YouTube anymore...Google does. Any application owner is within their own rights (regardless of good or bad judgement) as to how to require people register to participate in leaving comments. There's no requirement that he have to leave a comment.

Is Google making a bad decisions here? Possibly, but that's not the question.

His comment is relevant not because he or anyone else is under the impression that he has any say in how a property he no longer owns is run, but rather because he is a notable personality whose sentiment seems to echo quite a few of the users of the service in question.

Why the fuck do we need a Google+ account to comment on YouTube? The only way to get some stupid policy decisions reversed is publicity of user backlash, and you can count me in as to hoping this news post contributes to an about-face on the part of Google.

Where as he is correct in his sentiment, the issue is that he doesn't own YouTube anymore...Google does. Any application owner is within their own rights (regardless of good or bad judgement) as to how to require people register to participate in leaving comments. There's no requirement that he have to leave a comment.

Is Google making a bad decisions here? Possibly, but that's not the question.

So, because he no longer owns YouTube, he isn't allowed to share his opinion on the direction it has been taken? Come on now...

I never really understood the outrage on this one. They have lots of connected services so they're trying to consolidate everything under their login system. You can still start up a Youtube channel under a different email if you want to have one separate from your normal gmail account (as I have). It's like Apple using AppleID for iTunes and iOS devices and the Apple app store or Microsoft and a Microsoft account with Xbox, etc. Not really sure why it's a problem to use your Google account profile (G+) to log into Google services.

The thing is that while there's a trend of "use your real name for everything!" in the world, there's still a strong sense of "I want a media personality" when it comes to YouTube or other sites where material is publicly available. Something about the culture of YouTube or something makes people want to post on YouTube as someone else even while they're using their real names for Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

I sold my house, and drove by a year later and the new owners weren't maintaining the garden I put a lot of effort into. Did I throw a hissy fit? Nope, I sold that house so I lost ownership of it. Grow up, Jawed.

Your analogy doesn't work because in his case he's still a consumer of said service he used to own, so yes he is still entitled an opinion, as a user.

I must admit needing G+ for everything is getting a bit painful. How about I want to use the services and not be electronically social?

Do you need to log in to watch a video now? I thought this only happened when you wanted to actually comment.

Nope, every time I visit youtube it pops up asking if I want to use my real name instead of my channel name on comments even though I'm not commenting!

Yep, every 10 or 20 videos or so will overlay the entire screen with a prompt for me to use my "real name." I used to block the entire overlay using Adblock Plus' Element Hider Helper, but then I would end up with the problem of a YT video not loading or playing and me not knowing why - turns out it was the prompt that I had hidden.

So you can opt out? Now I'm more confused. I don't use youtube, so maybe someone can clarify.You need a google+ account to log in, comment, or neither if you opt out?

If you had a Youtube account before Google's unified accounts ate everything, you can still comment under your old account name. But when you do, when you try to post the comment, a pop-up window appears asking if you want to change over from posting with your YouTube pseudonym to the real name associated with your Google+ account. You can say "no," but there's no option for "no, and don't ask me again." You just have to keep going through the song-and-dance.

Where as he is correct in his sentiment, the issue is that he doesn't own YouTube anymore...Google does. Any application owner is within their own rights (regardless of good or bad judgement) as to how to require people register to participate in leaving comments. There's no requirement that he have to leave a comment.

Is Google making a bad decisions here? Possibly, but that's not the question.

So, because he no longer owns YouTube, he isn't allowed to share his opinion on the direction it has been taken? Come on now...

So you can opt out? Now I'm more confused. I don't use youtube, so maybe someone can clarify.You need a google+ account to log in, comment, or neither if you opt out?

If you had a Youtube account before Google's unified accounts ate everything, you can still comment under your old account name. But when you do, when you try to post the comment, a pop-up window appears asking if you want to change over from posting with your YouTube pseudonym to the real name associated with your Google+ account. You can say "no," but there's no option for "no, and don't ask me again." You just have to keep going through the song-and-dance.

Thank you.

While I can see that as being annoying, and think an option to say no and don't ask again would be nice, it does seem to be a far cry from the people claiming you need a Google+ account to even use the service.

Edit: Based on voting I seem to still be missing something. You can use the service without a google+ account, correct? So people claiming you can't are lying, also correct? I would love for someone to explain how those aren't correct, since every response I get seems to confirm them.

Actually I think the new change might be an improvement. Since the change every video I watch the comments section doesn't even load anymore (Says loading then it just ends up blank and I cant even post a comment despite having a G+ account set up). I'd say that's a 100% improvement so far.

I't's fascinating how the internet seems to have completely lost it's shit over this change, despite the fact that previously YouTube comments were basically the slime you scrape out of the bottom of a dumpster at the best of times. The formatting and sorting seems far better, and it looks like they are making a real effort to try and clean them up. As far as the name change, people are being silly. You always needed a YouTube account to comment. A YouTube account is a Google account, which is a Google+ account. You don't have to use your real name, you can continue to post as a pseudonym, you just have to read the explanation while going through the dialogs.

Google did the right thing here. They soft launched the G+ integration months and months ago, and when people pushed back they delayed it until they had a system in place that let people post as their same old pseudonym. There is no problem other than ignorant people not understanding what's going on, which is frankly the most I would expect from people who really care about YouTube comments.

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So you can opt out? Now I'm more confused. I don't use youtube, so maybe someone can clarify.You need a google+ account to log in, comment, or neither if you opt out?

You need a google account (which is also a YouTube account and a G+ account), which is no different than before. The difference is that you have to choose whether to use your G+ identity or create a G+ page that acts as a pseudonym so you can still post with a fake name. It's really no big deal.